R200m levy aims to strengthen SA’s red meat industry

Résumé détaillé

‘We, as industry said, we need to step in and be the determiners of our own future. If we're going to wait for government to do this, we're going to wait forever,’ says Red Meat Industry Services CEO Dewald Olivier.

JEREMY MAGGS: South Africa’s red meat industry is facing serious challenges from animal diseases, particularly foot-and-mouth, which threatens farmers, exports and ultimately consumers.

Now, a new statutory levy cycle is now in place to help fund industry services, as I understand it, including biosecurity. But here’s the question: will collecting more money actually deliver better protection?

I’m going to talk to Dewald Olivier, who is chief executive officer of Red Meat Industry Services. Dewald, let’s start with the money then, and welcome to you, how much will the new levy raise? Who pays it and where exactly is it going to go?

DEWALD OLIVIER: Very valid question. Approximately what we budgeted for is R50 million per annum for the next four years. So in total it’s roughly R200 million that will be levied.

So the money will go towards specifically, we’ve got four pillars, and I think it’s important to understand the four pillars.

The first one is animal and public health. There are certain services that need to be delivered from a biosecurity perspective, but also with regard to safety of meat, to ensure that we are in a situation where we do look after the meat and ensure that the meat is safe and so on.

Then we’ve got a second leg, which is market access, ensuring that we’ve got access to international markets, but also access for local, small-scale and new entrants to the market that can have access.

The third one is inclusive growth. Normally it’s called transformation, we call it inclusive growth.

Then the last one is sustainability, competitiveness and sustainability, and it will go towards specific projects looking at that.

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